PIM Advice - but I don't want to use Outlook.

[badinfluence]

Hello all,

I'm looking for a good personal information management software package. I've been looking at a lot of the titles that seem great - but I have one caveat.

Outlook just plain stinks. It's virally prone software - and don't use it at all. I don't watn to have to install garbage software on my machine when all I'm looking for is contact management - not email.

I'd like to maintain the list on my pc - and sync with my iPaq when necessary.

Is there such an application that will allow me to use on my PC and my PDA, sync them together and not use Outlook?

Thanx,

Jonathan

[Janak Parekh]

Outlook just plain stinks. It's virally prone software - and don't use it at all. I don't watn to have to install garbage software on my machine when all I'm looking for is contact management - not email.
Out of the box, ActiveSync is not designed to support syncing with anything but Outlook. There are third-party solutions one can buy, but unless you have another reason, I'd suggest using Outlook just for PIM. It works just fine even if you never use it for email, and in that configuration is not remotely prone to viruses, worms, etc.

--janak

[badinfluence]

Thanx,

So, here I am, I have Outlook 2K. I uninstall it and install Outlook 2K3 that comes with the PDA. It doesn't work.

Let's not even get into the registry garbage left behind either.

So.... I uninstall it - and do a fresh install.

Same thing, but now I have everything installed - but the Outlook executable. All the files are there and such. No shortcut, no executable.

Ahhhhh...... this is more the reason I like using linux - things just work like they should!

I'll get it to run eventually..........

Thanx again,

Jonathan

[Janak Parekh]

So, here I am, I have Outlook 2K. I uninstall it and install Outlook 2K3 that comes with the PDA. It doesn't work.
Well, do realize that Office 2003 is designed to cleanly upgrade previous versions of Office, so you didn't have to uninstall it. That said, what exactly do you mean by "doesn't work"?

And, incidentally, Outlook 2000 would work just fine for PIM sync.

Same thing, but now I have everything installed - but the Outlook executable. All the files are there and such. No shortcut, no executable.
8O I've never seen this... you may want to try a repair. Did you get an error message during the install?

Ahhhhh...... this is more the reason I like using linux - things just work like they should!
Well... I'm dreading upgrading my Debian box from woody to sarge, largely because I've got a custom kernel and tons of compiled apps I'll have to run through and manually clean based on which is newer on Debian. I've thought about installing another distro instead, but I'll have to convert (well, "should") from exim to postfix, which will take me hours too. And I do ultimately need to upgrade, because the software out there needs newer versions of libraries than the ones I have and the configure scripts are breaking and...

Actually, I do prefer the UNIX model (and especially the library versioning mechanism) to the Windows model when it comes to application install and management. But by no stretch does everything always "work like they should", and it's ill-tailored for the average end-user at best.

--janak

[badinfluence]

Well... typically, and from experience, it's bad to install an app over another. So, given that I had a full version to replace a full version - I went ahead and uninstalled the old version, rebooted, and went for a clean install.

I've done this no less than about 4,000 to 6,000 times at work, and I've never seen this one. But if it's one thing I've learned - Microsoft keeps the bills paid by creating some buggy as all hell software. :D :evil:

Yep, just no executable - anywhere. Here's the even odder bit - it installs the office toolbar - just doesn't have the outlook shortcut on it. Now that's just odd.

I'll have to dig deeper, I guess. I like using Thunderbird - it works for me just fine for email. Seems I'm going to have to use outlook for this one.

Linux distros. I almost picked up a new Sun box - since the prices have come down quite a bit (and I can always get a daughter card for Windoze).

I'm primarily a Redhat user for server side stuff when I have to be. I prefer SuSe for both the desktop and the server - it just plain works great.

Debian - I have used - on others peoples machines, but not enough on my own. Seems great as a web server runnign Apache.

Custom kernels - I try as much as possible to stay away from that for just that reason. The added caveat though - virii have a hard time working on some custom kernels.

If we had an equivalent on linux... man I'd be set.

Jonathan

[Janak Parekh]

If we had an equivalent on linux... man I'd be set.
Well, if you're using WM2003SE or earlier, there's always SynCE (http://synce.sourceforge.net/synce/), and I think you can shoehorn one of the OSS PIMs into using it. It's not a trivial task, however.

As for Windows: I believe Outlook is the easiest solution. Thunderbird's Address Book is certainly not supported at this time. There are tools that allow you to sync against Outlook Express and several other Windows PIMs, but you're talking commercial add-ons, such as IntelliSync or SyncExpress.

--janak